I keep cutting till I feel better

One in five girls aged between 15 and 17 has deliberately hurt themselves, according to new research. Paul Lewis asks one self-harmer why she does it

Thursday February 16, 2006
The Guardian

Apart from the dark verses of introspection written on her walls, there appears to be nothing in Nia Could's bedroom to indicate an addiction she has had since she was 12. Then she peels back her duvet to uncover a black leather journal and a packet of plasters. "It's the perfect hiding place," she says, delicately tapping the side of her diary until six razor blades fall into her hand.
Next, from beneath a messy pile of laundry next to her bed, she pulls a large blood-soaked towel. "I don't wash it as often as I should," she admits, before hurriedly packing away her cutting paraphernalia. "I'm not really one for caring for my wounds."
Along with two other girls, 14-year-old Nia, who lives with her father and brother at their home in Charford, near Birmingham, is the subject of a Channel 4 documentary, The Cutting Club, which exposes the world of self-harm from the perspective of the young, usually female, victims.
Nia is an exceptionally intelligent girl, and she knows her self-harming is a problem. "I do want to stop. It's not a healthy thing, it's not normal. Whatever normal is, it's not that."
But she isn't as abnormal as she might think. Self harm is now recognised by mental health professionals as an addiction and last year, a survey published by The Priory Group found that 20% of girls aged between 15 and 17 have deliberately hurt themselves. The survey also found that more than a million British adolescents, including boys, have at some point considered harming themselves. Experts say that a small minority of these teenagers will continue self-harming into adulthood.
The first time Nia cut herself was two weeks before her 13th birthday. "I'd been given a pen-knife by my uncle for Christmas. I was messing around with it in my room, cutting up bits of paper. It must have just made sense; I was stressed and I wanted to take it out on myself."
There are a number of problems that could explain Nia's cutting. Top of the list, she admits, is her lack of self-esteem. "As long as I can remember I've disliked myself," she explains. "I've never exactly detested myself, but I can't remember ever being comfortable in my own skin." Then there is school: a place where she was constantly bullied. Nia's depressions have led her to overdosing four times and spending eight weeks at an adolescent unit.
But her father, Pete, a mental health nurse, believes there is another reason his daughter turned to self-harm. Several months before she first cut, Nia's mother, Denise, died of cancer.
"With her mum passing away she lost her best friend and someone to talk to," says Pete. "We tried to find counselling, but there was a waiting list. So there was no one there for her to relate to."
But whatever the initial cause, Nia's addiction persists. She now injures herself about twice a week. This is an improvement: a year ago it was daily, sometimes in the school toilets. Her arms are criss-crossed with a patchwork of healing scars.
When her father discovered she was injuring herself, he was devastated. "You know what's happening but you're just a spectator. I looked at my beautiful daughter and thought how can she mutilate herself like that? But there's nothing I can do to stop her. At its worst, it was like when my wife was dying: my input was simply to be there and witness it." Now Pete has learned to live with - although not accept - what his daughter calls her "coping mechanism". Some parents go further. In the documentary one girl, Abigail, tearfully cries "I need my scars" after her father removes cutting equipment from her room. The next day her mother gives in and supplies her with a razor.
Nia doesn't blame her father for struggling to understand why she cuts. "Emotions don't just disappear," she says. "There's always got to be something that makes them go away. Some people go out for a walk. I just think: why walk when I can cut?
"Occasionally I do it out of anger. I think: I deserve to hurt. Other times I just feel overwhelmed and need to restore some sense of normality within myself. Hurting, you see, it's normal; it's normal to feel pain. It hurts," she admits. "I won't lie and say it doesn't. But at the same time you're expecting the pain, so there's no shock."
It's no coincidence that Nia's rationalisations are well-formed; she is used to discussing self-injury. Along with 20,000 others, she belongs to an online community who use the controversial website RecoverYourLife.com (known among users as RYL) to seek information and solidarity from fellow self-harmers. She logs on to RYL for up to five hours a day.
The site was developed by Harley Morlsworth, a 24-year-old web designer from Suffolk, originally under the name "Ruin Your Life". "It was initially a forum for the intellectual discussion of the art of self-destruction," he says, somewhat blithely.
The truth is more sinister: under its previous title, the website contained graphic photographs of self-injury, postings known as "triggers" that would prompt users to injure themselves. For Nia, then aged 12, the website provided a lens through which to comprehend what she had tentatively started with her uncle's pen-knife.
Morlsworth recently renovated the site to offer advice and support to users, and improved mechanisms for moderating the content. From 1,000 hits a week at its inception, RYL now receives more than 1 million a week - although he denies that the huge audience visiting RYL are ever encouraged to self harm. "Nowhere on the site do we say self-harm is a good thing," he says.
Indeed, Morlsworth now says he's an expert on self-harm, claiming to have read every medical journal on the subject, and hopes to register RYL as a charity. "I have become dedicated to a community that continues to amaze me," he says. "They need a central person to direct things."
But Dr Andrew McCulloch, chief executive of the Mental Health Foundation, which will publish a national inquiry into self-harm next month, is worried about sites such as RYL, which he says can serve to normalise the problem. "These sites can do more harm than good," he warns. "Warnings that postings might induce self-harm are clearly inadequate."
Nia accepts the risks, but continues to see RYL as a source of support and friendship; an open space where people will understand her. "On the internet there's always someone there," she explains. "It's better than the outside world".

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